EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES: THEME ISSUE

Actually Existing Neoliberalisms: Variations on a Post-Socialist Theme

Editorial
Neoliberal Doctrine Meets the Eastern Bloc:
Resistance, Appropriation, and Purification in Post-socialist Spaces

Sonia Hirt (Virginia Tech, USA), Christian Sellar (University of Mississippi, USA), Craig
Young (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Neoliberalization and ‘actually existing neo-liberalisms’

This special issue explores how neoliberal ideology – and related economic policies – has

been implemented in the once-socialist countries of East-Central Europe (ECE) and the former

Soviet Union (FSU). Specifically, the issue argues that this ideology undergoes deep

modifications as it meets post-socialist conditions: sometimes it is creatively appropriated,

sometimes resisted, and sometimes ‘purified’ (i.e., implemented more thoroughly than in the

Western nations where neoliberalism as an ideology was developed). In doing so, the issue

illustrates how ‘actually existing neoliberalism,’ to use Brenner and Theodore’s (2002)

terminology, occurs ‘on the ground.’ It argues that the ‘actually existing neoliberalisms,’ which

have developed in a variety of post-socialist contexts, can differ profoundly from the theoretical

constructs propagated by neoliberalism’s supporters, including the major international financial

institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).

Neoliberalism comprises the policy applications of neoclassical economic theory.

Academic critiques such as Harvey (2003, 2005) highlight the connections between these

policies, the reinstatement of class power, and the emergence of the current phase of

globalization. The narrative of Harvey and others describes a revival of neoclassical ideology in

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the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) in the midst of the 1970s crisis of the

Fordist mode of production and the Keynesian political economy model (Harvey 2010; Lipietz

2001). In the 1980s, arguably in reaction to this crisis, the Reagan administration in the US and

the Thatcher government in the UK adopted policies that curtailed welfare programs and other

redistributive policies; lifted barriers to trade, especially in the financial sector; reduced state

intervention in the economy; and privatized many public assets. The vacuum created by the

‘rolling back of the welfare state’ was filled by an increasing reliance on unregulated capitalist

enterprise and public-private partnerships (Harvey 2005, p. 113). Since the 1990s, the US

government, along with the IMF and the WB, exerted pressure on developing and developed

countries alike to adopt similar reforms (often referred to collectively as ‘the Washington

Consensus’). Simultaneously, the Chinese government adopted aspects of the free-market

economy, marrying neoliberalism and Communist Party rule (Harvey 2005). The European

Union (EU) also contributed to this process, although many of its founding members have long

social democratic traditions, thus leading EU institutions to promote a medley of neoliberal and

Keynesian policies in their sphere of influence.1

Building upon this story of the progressive transformation of the world economy in the

image of Anglo-American neo-liberalism, a vast literature has discussed the multi-scalar

modifications of—and resistance to—the neoliberal project. The works of Pierre Bourdieu, Jean

and John Comaroff, Jacques Derrida, Gustava Esteva and others have examined the exploitative

character and sharpening class warfare that were brought about by neoliberally minded

globalization (Bourdieu 1999, 2003; Comaroff & Comaroff 2001; Derrida 1994; Esteva and

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For example, the EU Regional and Cohesion policies backed by the EU Regional Development Funds on occasion
push for competitiveness and spreading neoliberal ‘best practices’; yet on others they aim to respect differences and
overcome inequalities between nations and between regions (McEwen 2011; Sellar & McEwen 2011).

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Prakash 1998). Scholarly criticism aside, however, from the early 1990s to the beginning of the

2000s, the influence of neoliberal ideology over policy makers increased globally, to the point

that its most vocal supporters claimed that viable alternatives to Western liberalism have been

exhausted and the world is witnessing the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama 1992). Indeed, the demise

of Soviet-style socialism, the crisis of Western Keynesianism, and the adoption of elements of a

capitalist economy in China all seemed to lend support to this conclusion, even as citizens (and

scholars) around the world struggled to find alternatives.

Critics of neoliberalism have challenged many of its fundamental philosophical

assumptions, including notions concerning the rationality of markets and their ability to

distribute resources in an optimal manner (Comaroff & Comaroff 2001). Some scholars advocate

the re-organization of the state against the marketization of society (Bourdieu 1999, 2003) and

argue that there is still vitality in the communist utopia (Derrida 1994). Others directly engage

with social movements and anti-globalization groups, and produce more accessible, program-

oriented writings that aim to provide a basis from which to challenge the neoliberal process from

the ‘bottom up’ (Bircham & Carlton 2001; George 2004; Klein 2000; Esteva & Prakash 1998;

Danaher 2001). The neoliberal project has been challenged not only by bottom-up social

movements but also by local and transnational elites, albeit in very different ways. The literature

has shown that elites have extensive powers to mould neoliberal ideology to fit their own agenda.

For example, Aihwa Ong investigated the ‘revisiting’ of neoliberalism by mainland Chinese

elites, while Henry Yeung and Katherine Mitchell showed how the Chinese diaspora skillfully

reinterpreted pre-modern social linkages and family networks to thrive in the relatively open-

border, free-trade environments of the Pacific Rim since the 1990s (Ong 1999, 2006; Yeung

2002; Mitchell 2004).

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 In the former Eastern Bloc, the appropriation of neoliberal ideology by new elites has

also been documented, starting with the work of Anders Aslund and Jeffrey Sachs—authors of

academic work and top-level consultants who influenced how governments in Russia, Poland,

the Ukraine and other nations managed their transition (Aslund 2002; Blanchard et al. 1994).

Later, Merje Kuus developed a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which ‘Western’

consulting and ideas were shaped, directed and manipulated by ‘Eastern’ elites (Kuus 2004,

2008). Through a ‘ritual of listening to foreigners,’ these elites skillfully directed Western aid,

thus influencing both the implementation and the design of aid programs:2

Western officials relied heavily on a handful of local partners, whom they depicted as
particularly competent and reformist, largely because of these partners’ Western
experience, ‘Western’ dress code and mannerisms…[these] local officials swayed not
only the administration of Western aid in the recipient states but also influenced the
design of aid programs in the donor states (Kuus 2004, pp. 478-9).

This persistent conflict between popular skepticism and resistance towards (neoliberal)

globalization and what may be described as elites’ manipulation of neoliberal ideology to fit their

own interests raises a series of questions regarding the very nature of neoliberalism. What is

neoliberalism after all? What does it mean in different parts of the world? How do its conceptual

building blocks, like ‘property’ or ‘market,’ translate into different contexts? Is neoliberalism

truly an Anglo-American model exported abroad? How does it ‘travel’ around the world? Why

do different groups, different citizen organizations and different elites see it, practice it, or adapt

to it differently? Whereas there is consensus on neoliberalism’s main components, evidence for

its locally specific manifestations have led scholars to propose that there is no single, ‘one-size-

2
For example, Adam Swain (2006) showed how the interplay between Western academics, consultants and donors,
and local political elites led to the emergence of a network of institutions, dedicated to the neoliberalization of post-
socialist Europe and Eurasia. He termed this alliance the ‘transition industry’. Swain specifically described the
transformation of a whole array of institutional structures emerging from the interactions between foreign
consultants and local leaders in the restructuring of Ukraine’s energy sector.

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fits-all’ neoliberalism (Larner 2003); rather, there is a myriad of ‘actually existing

neoliberalisms’ (Brenner & Theodore 2002) or a process of ‘neoliberalisation’ (Gibson &

Klocker 2005; Peck and Tickell 2002). These terms highlight that neoliberalism does not ‘trickle

down’ to the local context and then, ‘once it hits the ground,’ work following a clearly pre-

determined pathway. Rather, its specific trajectory depends on a rich variety of national and local

responses, which modify the mainstream theory and convert it into ‘actually existing,’ context-

dependent realities. These realities are produced by the intersection of the neoliberal credo with

local, inherited and path-dependent institutional structures, regulatory regimes and cultures

(Brenner & Theodore 2002).

In a special issue of Geographical Research on Antipodean neoliberalism, Donald

McNeill warned against ‘the power of this theory to travel unruffled’ (McNeill 2005, p. 113).

Policy ‘travels’ globally in complex ways during which its core meanings can be altered through

the mundane actions of those implementing it (McCann 2008). As Peck & Theodore (2001, p.

427) suggest, policy is rarely literally transferred in a uniform manner, rather ‘the form and

function of…policies is prone to change as they are translated and re-embedded within and

between different institutional, economic and political contexts.’ O’Neill & Argent (2005) argue

that Australia, for example, has experienced neoliberalism in multiple ways in different domains:

in some cases, there have been tendencies towards embracing neoliberal doctrine, and in others,

towards either resisting it or actively (re)constructing it. In her study of Sydney’s metropolitan

planning, McGuirk (2009, p. 67) argues that the planning agenda shows a willingness to ‘engage

state agency in a complex and hybrid manner that is neither predetermined by any neoliberalist

prescription nor unequivocally neoliberalist…. [As a result] [s]omething more complex, partial

and hybrid has been enacted.’ Of particular relevance to the study of how neoliberalism ‘touches

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down’ in the Central Asian republics, a number of studies have highlighted the locally contingent

nature of neoliberalisation in a variety of rural developing-world contexts (e.g. see Igoe 2007;

Büscher & Dressler 2010; Duffy & Moore 2010).

Besides highlighting the local specificities, the term ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’

indicates the tension between the ideology and the actual practices, partially because ‘neoliberal

ideology systematically misrepresents the real effects of such policies upon macro-institutional

structures’ and omits the extraordinary variety of local responses (Brenner & Theodore 2002, p.

353). This variety warrants investigation not so much of some imaginary single, global

evolutionary history of neoliberalism but, rather, an analysis of the complex, varied geographies

of neoliberalisms.

It can be argued that neoliberalism is far from a unifying factor in the socioeconomic and

institutional make-up of the world, regardless of the claims of Fukuyama and Friedman

(Fukuyama 1992; Friedman 2005). Rather, the multiplicity of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’

have territorial specificities, partially because by nominally embracing neoliberal ideology elites

and other social groups with different access to power have modified existing institutional

arrangements at multiple scales and reconstructed them to suit their own purposes (Peck &

Tickell 2002). Transformations in the relationship between power and territory (territoriality) are

among the most visible changes in contemporary political geographies. In particular, the new

institutions which are emerging as a consequence of neoliberalization have changed the ways in

which states use territories as a source of control and management (Agnew 2005a; Bialasiewicz

et al. 2005; Cox 2003; Gilbert 2007; Jessop et al. 2008). In doing so, they have brought about

processes of de-territorialization and re-territorialization; i.e., the reorganization of territories

under new structures conceptualized and dominated by non-state (e.g., sub-national and supra-

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national) actors (Toal & Luke 1994; Sparke 2006; Shore 2000; Jones 2008). Simultaneously,

(neoliberal) globalization has transformed sovereignty: the ‘unlimited and indivisible rule by

state over a territory and the people in it’ (Agnew 2005b), including the ways in which

sovereignty is territorialized (Murphy 1996; Sidaway 2003; Agnew 2005b; Antonsich 2009).

These changes shape the trajectory of neoliberalisms in multiple ways. To begin with, without a

redefinition of territoriality and sovereignty, a single ideology such as neoliberalism could not

have become so globally influential. At the same time, however, robust challenges to this

ideology are now becoming possible partially because of the formation of social movements and

capital alliances that could not exist under traditional notions of territoriality and sovereignty.

‘Actually existing neoliberalisms’ under post-socialism

The aim of this theme issue is to advance understanding of ‘actually existing

neoliberalisms’ by focusing on the meanings, implementations and modifications of neoliberal

doctrine in the context of the former Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. This is done through a

series of papers analyzing the reception of the key elements of neoliberalism in two ECE nations

and five countries in the FSU. The post-socialist world of Eurasia represents a particularly

intriguing locus for investigating the ‘travels’ of neoliberalism. For several decades, of course,

this vast region was the home of neoliberalism’s arch-enemy – ‘actually existing socialism’. This

Brezhnev-era term was meant to distinguish the ‘real’ socialist countries from the ideal

communist society of the future but also, more subtly perhaps, from the ‘fake’ social

democracies of 1970s Western Europe (e.g., those in Scandinavia). The collapse of ‘actually

existing’ socialist regimes in 1989-91 put this region into prolonged economic and political
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turmoil. Arguably, the region may be described as undergoing systemic transformation along

three chief socio-economic and ideological axes: neoliberal globalization, post-socialism and

Europeanization (the latter term, of course, loses relevance as we move closer to Central Asia

(Tsenkova & Nedovic-Budic 2006)). Because of the real and perceived failures of ‘actually

existing socialism’ (which included the economic stagnation of the 1980s and the economic

meltdown of the early 1990s), the former Eastern Bloc became viewed as an especially ripe

recipient of neoliberal ‘shock therapy’ meant to ‘transfuse the spirit of [neo-liberal] capitalism’

(Andrusz et al. 1996, p. 11) to East European and Eurasian soil. These IMF- and WB-inspired

strategies aimed to quickly (re)institute private property regimes, remove barriers to multi-

national trade, eliminate state dominance over the economy, and dismantle existing social safety

nets—all in order to jump-start this particular form of capitalism regardless of its many negative

side effects such as sharply increased poverty and social stratification (e.g., see Elliott & Hall

1999; Hirt & Stanilov 2009). It would, however, be a mistake to see these efforts as exercises in

the straightforward adoption of Western neoliberalism. As the papers in this volume suggest, the

neoliberal credo has made a rather complex rendezvous with post-socialism.

The very term ‘post-socialism’ is a complex construct. It typically indicates the multiple

social, economic, and political changes experienced in ECE and the FSU after the collapse of

communist regimes in 1989-91. The term was developed to challenge the assumption, implicit in

the work of neoliberal scholars and in the publications of international financial institutions, of a

linear transition from an ideal-type command economy to an ideal-type market economy; i.e.,

from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism (Lipton & Sachs 1992; EBRD 1997). Neoliberal

policies, sometimes known in the former socialist countries as ‘the three zatsjias’ (liberalizatsja,

privatizatsja, stabilizatsja: privatization, liberalization, stabilization), were to be achieved via

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immediate and comprehensive reforms— ‘shock therapy’ (Lipton & Sachs 1992). However, not

all countries adopted this approach and even in those which nominally did, the institutional and

cultural legacies of the past prevented a straightforward substitution of one model with another.

Scholars performing microanalyses of property and inter-firm networks, for instance, found that

personal and group relations that were built during the socialist period prevented the simplistic

imposition of a capitalist society comprising profit-maximizing ‘rational’ market actors operating

within a ‘pure’ property regime (Pickles & Smith 1998; Bandelj 2008; Stark & Bruszt 1998). In

one of the earliest challenges to the conventional view of transition, Stark (1990) defined post-

socialism not as a shift ‘from plan to market’ (e.g., World Bank 1996) but from ‘plan to clan’.

On their way to becoming ‘properly’ capitalist, post-socialist elites creatively embraced and

manipulated both capitalism and, in some cases ‘Europeanness,’ to suit their own agendas (Kuus

2004; Sellar et al. 2009a, 2009b; Bakić-Hayden 1995). Whereas international institutions such as

the European Commission were busy ‘teaching’ their own mix of Keynesian and neoliberal

policies to the new EU member states via the Structural and Cohesion funds (Sellar & McEwen

2011), post-socialist political and business leaders, positioned as ‘learners,’ had other ideas of

what these policies meant. Furthermore, the policies themselves have not been widely popular. In

fact, there is evidence across the region that free-market skepticism and socialist nostalgia are

common among many segments of European and Eurasian post-socialist society (e.g., Ghodsee

& Henry 2010), feeding into subtle and not-so-subtle ways of resisting and, in some cases,

transforming the basic neoliberal credo.

Scholars have provided several examples of key neoliberal policies and their underlying

concepts that were manipulated by local elites when imported from the West. The ambiguity of

the concept of ‘property’ in post-socialist Romania, for example, has been convincingly

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demonstrated by Verdery (2003). From neighboring Bulgaria, we have several examples that

challenge the straightforward meaning and seamless importation of apparently fundamental

concepts such as civil society (Staddon & Cellarius 2002), industry and development (Creed

1997), regionalism and public participation (Hirt 2005, 2007). Sellar et al. (2011) analyzed the

implementation of specific industrial policies—the so-called ‘cluster policies’—and showed that

the legacy of socialism, relations among policy stakeholders, and contextual aspects such as

macroeconomic policies, fundamentally transformed the intent of the EU policies when they

were implemented in Bulgaria.

These studies suggest that ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ are deeply embedded into

local contexts in which the meanings of basic neoliberal terms can become ‘lost in translation’

(though not necessarily for the worse). This theme issue explores these processes in the post-

socialist context, analyzing how exactly neoliberal ideology becomes integrated into and

modulated by existing belief systems and economic and institutional traditions. How do the

abstract concepts of neoliberalism become intertwined with local practices and how are they

modified in the process? We propose several overlapping modulations of neoliberalism in the

Eurasian post-socialist region, including resistance, appropriation and purification. Below, we

introduce how these themes are explored in the individual papers.

Implementing neoliberalism in the former Eastern Bloc

The papers in this theme issue explore how various social groups, state institutions,

enterprises and individuals use neoliberal constructs—concepts, ideals, and models—‘on the

ground’ in the post-socialist context. Local responses include skepticism towards and resistance

to these neoliberal constructs. In other cases, the constructs are embraced, exaggerated and even

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mythologized in locally contingent ways in order to support specific policies and actions.

Powerful groups clearly have greater capacity to mould and appropriate these constructs for their

own ends, whereas weaker ones may be forced to adapt to them in their daily lives, though this

does not necessarily make them simply the ‘victims’ of an imposed neoliberalism. How various

groups use or modify neoliberal constructs depends as much on social status as on national and

cultural context. Neoliberalism’s perceived ‘Westernness’ provides legitimacy in some cases (as

we observe in the ECE countries discussed below) but in others it only contributes toward

skepticism and rejection (as we observe in Russia and Central Asia). Finally, the very idea of

neoliberalism as a Western ideology that is being ‘taught’ to the ‘East’ may need some

rethinking.

The first paper, by Grigory Ioffe, describes the outright skepticism of post-Soviet elites

toward the importation of neoliberalism under the guise of US- (and, to a lesser extent, EU-)

driven democracy-promotion. The piece sets up the provocative tone of the theme issue by

examining how a concept which is central to neoliberalism – democracy – is in fact constructed

and mobilized in very different ways by both Western and post-socialist elites. By carefully

exposing the US government’s ‘doublespeak’ on ‘democracy,’ a term used selectively to endorse

its geo-political allies and penalize its enemies, Ioffe posits that Western constructs are bound to

meet resistance if injected so hypocritically. This type of selective democracy-exportation is of

course not limited to the post-socialist world and there are many examples from Latin America

and the Middle East of cases where political ‘realism’ rather than democracy-promotion has been

the backbone of US policies. In a similar vein, Ioffe argues that the American vision of Belarus

and the Ukraine changed over time (without a substantive regime change in either country) in

response to whether they were seen as US allies or enemies in the struggle to constrain Russia’s

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dominance in the region. Along similar lines, it also argues that, while the West (the US and the

EU) actively condemned actions by the Belarusian regime, it ‘busily embraced’ similarly

authoritarian governments in Central Asia ‘because of new and exciting natural gas agreements’

(Ioffe, this volume, p…) One way of thinking about Ioffe’s contribution is to consider it a call

for an ‘actually existing geopolitical realism,’ i.e., a geopolitical realism that is not perpetually

trying to sell itself under the cover of democracy, whatever this elusive term may mean.

Peter Linder’s paper provides an anthropological account of how former workers in five

Soviet collective farms (kolhoz) adjusted their daily lives—and their selfhoods—to the

introduction of notions of ‘private property’. Linder explores the dominant nature of such

concepts as ‘property’ and ‘market’ while questioning their universality, much as Ioffe questions

the implementation of notions of ‘democracy.’ This paper investigates the political goals of

establishing property rights, the resulting policy outcomes, and their impacts on everyday life. It

focuses on the mechanisms leading to the divergence between the formal adoption of property

rights and their actual implementation, which results in hybrid forms of private and collective

property. This divergence is produced partially by the fact that some aspects of neoliberal

notions of ‘pure’ private property are completely foreign to the local population.

In a similar vein to Linder’s paper, Marianna Pavlovskaya explores the establishment of

private property in Russia in two contrasting locations: central Moscow and the Russian Far

East, where the local economy is based on Arctic reindeer herding. Pavlovskaya’s cases (as with

Linder’s) demonstrate that neoliberal concepts such as private property regimes undergo

significant modifications when they meet the ground. In downtown Moscow, the author shows

how Russian capitalist enterprises appeared to take off precisely in the urban spaces which were

inhabited by socialist-era mega-institutions like Komsomol (the organization of the Soviet

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communist youth). This example illustrates how attempts to start capitalism from scratch through

rapid urban land and real-estate privatization actually led to quite unexpected outcomes.

Burgeoning small private businesses quickly found that obtaining office space in Moscow in the

early 1990s was logistically difficult and prohibitively expensive. There were similar problems

with acquiring qualified staff and other resources. The ‘market’ was skewed in favor of the

various Soviet-era agencies, whose leaders quickly learned to become entrepreneurs combining

their state and private roles (much as they were combining state and private office space).

Russia’s capitalism was thus incubated on the state’s grounds—that is, not according to

neoliberal prescription. Privatizatsja was the word of the day, but it did not take place the way

neoliberal advocates suggested: state resources were not sold to private parties but were used to

generate private profits. Pavlovskaya’s story of the Far East is both different and complementary.

There, private property did not exist (thus making both Soviet collectivization and post-Soviet

privatization seem nonsensical, practically and symbolically). Under the threat of the giant

Russian and multi-national oil and other resource-extraction private mega-industries, indigenous

communities have struggled to establish communal (obshchina) ownership in order to resist post-

Soviet privatization.

William Rowe examines the theme of property regimes and conflicts in Tajikistan. He

describes the implementation of neoliberal policies in an environment with significant economic

constraints. The government of Tajikistan adopted neoliberal policies to attract funds from the

WB and counteract the failure of Soviet modernization. However, the specificity of the local

economy led to a particular appropriation of the neoliberal model. In Tajikistan, the return to

traditional, pre-Soviet agricultural practices has allowed two thirds of the population to earn a

living after the collapse of Soviet industries. As a consequence, Tajik neoliberalism is a synthesis

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of ‘traditional resource use… with non-entrepreneurial activities in the nontraditional branches

of the economy’ (Rowe, this volume, p. xxx). The Tajik political economy is characterized by a

constant negotiation between the WB’s efforts to privatize land, the government’s firm

commitment to continue controlling it (thus, to continue practicing an indisputably non-

neoliberal idea while appropriating it and paying ‘lip service’ to the WB), and farmers’ efforts to

resist both their government and the WB in order to hold on to their traditional socio-economic

practices.

The next paper, by Martin Sokol on economic policies in Eastern Slovakia, shows the far-

reaching consequences of neoliberal model-making and its impact on regional governance. The

author demonstrates how neoliberal myths are made, glorified and appropriated. He tells the

story of Slovakia’s Kosice region, where various local public and private agencies have

established cooperative relationships, thus changing the way they manage their territory, in an

attempt to imitate the development model of the famous Silicon Valley, California—a model

which has for long served as an inspiration for capitalism’s proponents. Sokol argues that

contrary to the commonly held view of Silicon Valley as competitive capitalism at its best, its

emergence and long-term success were to a great extent the product of US federal intervention,

especially heavy military investment during the Cold War. The author points to the irony that

Silicon Valley holds such an ideological appeal for free-market advocates even though it was not

the result of the successful operation of the free market. Paradoxically, the advent of

neoliberalism in Slovakia constrained the possibility of a local Silicon Valley, because state

resources became severely limited. Importantly for the purposes of this theme issue, however,

the paper shows how neoliberal models or, more specifically, representations of idealized types

of neoliberalism, can be appropriated and used as legitimation tools in order to initiate specific

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forms of action. Echoing Pavlovskaya’s analysis, Sokol’s paper reminds us that thriving

capitalism requires serious state investment, something which post-socialist Slovakia seems to

lack.

Ulrich Ermann’s paper on the fashion industry in Bulgaria demonstrates both a different

type of appropriation and the development of alternative (but hybrid) strategies. Building on

Bulgarians’ long-standing sense of being backward and thus permanently struggling to become

‘European’ (Todorova 1997), the emerging Bulgarian fashion enterprises appropriated Western

names, images and styles in order to present themselves as desirable by those Bulgarians who

aspired to be Europeans. These names, images and styles were also used as means of

disassociation from the backward, ‘unfashionable,’ ostensibly ‘non-European’ socialist past.

However, the business strategies developed by these firms also demonstrate alternative and more

nuanced approaches to marketing. One of the most successful fashion firms is owned by the

grand-daughter of the last Bulgarian socialist dictator, Todor Zhivkov. Proudly using her

grandfather’s name, the firm’s energetic owner, Zheni Zhivkova, has managed to capitalize not

only on Western style, nomenclature and imagery but also on the socialist nostalgia that exists

among a sizable portion of the Bulgarian population. Success in the new market economy has

thus been based on combining Western approaches to marketing with local memories and

perceptions of the socialist past, a development which would not have been foreseen by orthodox

neoliberal theorists.

The theme issue ends with a thought-provoking piece on corruption in Russia by Irina

Olimpieva and Oleg Pachenkov. The authors refute some of the most popular axioms behind

neoliberally minded globalization: that corruption is a sign of an imperfect free-market system

and that the phenomenon is common in post-socialist societies because they have not yet

15
developed in a satisfactory neoliberal manner. Olimpieva and Pachenkov build on the work of

Holmes (2006), among others, in providing a detailed examination of the causes of corruption in

post-socialist societies. Holmes (2006) argues that with its lack of transparency and power

structures which distributed access to resources based on clan-like connections, the socialist

system set up the stage for corruption. Furthermore, the collapse of communist ideology

contributed to a legitimacy crisis of the state which in turn made it socially acceptable to see

public assets as a source of private gain (in Venelin Ganev’s (2007) words, the post-socialist

state became viewed by its subjects as an ‘object of extraction’). However, this is more than

another example of post-socialist path-dependency. The neoliberal transformation of East

European and Eurasian societies (i.e., the mass privatization of public resources) created

exceptional opportunities for corruption, especially in an environment where public employees at

all levels lived in an environment of heightened job insecurity and reduced incomes. Expanding

on this line of thought, Olimpieva and Pachenkov argue that ‘real’ neoliberal transformation is

not incompatible with corruption but is in fact conducive to it. ‘Corruption does not happen in

Russia,’ the authors say (Olimpieva & Pachenkov, this volume, p. xxx) ‘because Russia is not

neo-liberal enough; rather, it happens because Russia is more neo-liberal than the countries

where neo-liberal recipes originate, countries in which neo-liberalism is tempered by other

traditions.’ These traditions include transparency and long-term social-democratic institutions.

The authors suggest that if corruption is the use of public resources for private gain, then

corruption does not necessarily clash with neoliberalism but may be a legitimate neoliberal

business practice. In advancing this thesis of post-socialism as neoliberalism’s ‘purification,’3

Olimpieva and Pachenkov implicitly propose what was simply unthinkable on either side of the

3
A related thesis of post-socialism as the purified version of ‘post-modern’ neoliberalism has been advanced in
cultural anthropology (Kharkordin 1995, 1997) and cultural geography (Hirt 2008).
16
Iron Curtain: that what was once the land of ‘actually existing socialism’ has become the land of

‘actually existing neoliberalism,’ neoliberalism in its purest, cleanest, most unmediated form.

The theme issue, therefore, explores various instances of how the rolling-out of

neoliberalism is being modified into differing forms of ‘neoliberalisation’ or ‘actually existing

neoliberalisms’ as it encounters the post-socialist context. The papers reveal a complex

geography to this process. It highlights that rather than a single, monolithic ‘neoliberalism’

imposing itself upon these localities, the processes of neoliberalisation are inflected by local

contingencies combining the legacies inherited from the socialist/Soviet (or even pre-

socialist/Soviet) era with the forces of globalization and, in some cases, Europeanization. The

result is the emergence of a highly differentiated set of ‘varieties of capitalism’ in which many of

the basic tenets of neoliberalism are resisted, challenged, mutated and/or adopted in a purified

form as a part of post-socialist transformation. Through exploring these emerging ‘varieties of

neoliberalisation’ we hope that this theme issue demonstrates how post-socialist Europe, Russia

and Central Asia contribute further important insights into the impacts of the Anglo-American

neoliberal project.

References

Agnew, J. (2005a) ‘Bounding the European project’, Geopolitics, 10, 3, pp. 575–80.

Agnew, J. (2005b) ‘Sovereignty regimes: territoriality and state authority in contemporary world
politics’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95, 2, pp. 437–61.

Andrusz, G., Harloe, M. & Szelenyi, I. (1996) Cities after Socialism: Urban and Regional
Change and Conflict in Post-socialist Societies (Oxford, Blackwell).

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